About Cal Skinner

We Hate Spam!

We have recently instituted a system of spam control that helps keep the McHenry County Blog a lean, mean information machine. A side product of this process is that in certain cases you might be blocked or challenged to prove that you aren't a robot in order to comment on articles.

If for some reason the automated processes that are in place to prove that you are a human do not work, or if you have any other technical problems with the blog, please email techguy at any time for speedy resolution.

The McHenry County Republican Central Committee met in April to elect officers, but failed to name two representative committeemen for the 63rd District, who along with County Chairman Mike Tryon, are given the authority by state law to nominated someone to run against Democrat Jack Franks.

The McHenry County Republican Party so far seem not to have found an alternative to Tea Party-inspired Tonya Franklin to run against entrenched Democratic Party State Rep. Jack Franks.

If GOP leaders fail to find someone else to run in the 63rd state representative district, this will be third election cycle out of the last four where there is a vivid demonstration the inability to perform one of the basic functions of a political party–recruitment of candidates.

Tonya Franklin

One would guess Tonya Franklin did not serve in the Armed Forces.

Or, if she did, she didn’t take the common advice never to volunteer.

Because that’s just what she did.

She saw no one was on the GOP ticket against Franks and raised her hand.

Unlike in the Army, Party leaders didn’t think, “What a fool. We’ve got a volunteer.”

Party leaders rejected her offer to charge up San Juan Hill.

Or maybe a better example would be the old guy repeatedly charging up the stairs in the play “Harvey.”

Hopeless effort, don’t you know?

Why waste party resources when “everyone” knows you can’t be Jack Franks.

Well, “everyone” knew that Joe Walsh couldn’t beat Melissa Bean, too.

It was such a hopeless cause that only We Ask America did polls (the first one, the second one) that was made public.

And Nate Silver, the vaunted statistical prognosticator for the New York Times gave Melissa Bean an 89.9% chance of winning the election. That was the week before the election.! (Silver, by the way, never addressed this abysmal failure in prediction.)

It reminds me of that famous response given by a ward heeler to Abner Mikva when he went to the University of Chicago Democratic Party headquarters while in college:

“We don’t want nobody nobody sent.”

And that seems to be Franklin’s primary problem.

She popped up out of nowhere.

Sort of like Joe Walsh…except, unlike Walsh, Franklin actually lives in the state representative district. Moved in about four years ago. (Congressional candidates only have to live in the state where they run.)

She’s not a Republican Precinct Committeeman (but she’s willing to fill one of the literally dozens of vacancies) Those vacancies are a mark, in my opinion, of an unhealthy organization.

Sounds a lot like me when I announced I was running for the GOP nomination for McHenry County Treasurer in 1966.

I was 23 years old, came home from working in Washington in the Executive Office of the President, the Budget Bureau, to be specific, and so green I read my first speech to the Algonquin Township Republican Central Committee in the old dance hall across from the Fox River Grove train station.

Then, there was no lack of candidates for the $10,000 a year job.

Gene Brewer, the former Police Chief of Fox River Grove, then Chief in Harvard, and Ray Murphy, the Hartland Township Supervisor were announced candidates.

Brewer was supported by the State Bank of Woodstock, Murphy by the First National Bank of Woodstock.

I was backed by a group of reformers based in Crystal Lake, Cary and Fox River Grove–maybe 25% of the total Precinct Committeemen.

Of course, no one gave me a chance until about ten days before the election.

By then it was too late to switch supporters from one of the Establishment candidates to the other.

Sacrifice one to make sure the reformer didn’t get elected.

And I won by 72 votes out of about 12,000. Spread of 277 votes. 33%=, 33%, 33%-.

So, you never know when an outsider might win an election, especially in a year when pollster Scott Rasmussen is predicting the winner of the Presidential election will be “the candidate who can effectively communicate the public’s distrust in the government,” as a “Politics and Government” article summarizes his views.

Other articles I have written about the free ride that Jack Franks is about to get, plus numerous comments, can be found below:

Not to nitpick Cal, but…. I think you mean Arsenic & Old Lace- not Harvey.

In Harvey, Elwood P. Dowd has an invisible rabbit friend named Harvey.

In Arsenic and Old Lace, The Brewster Sisters kill 13 lonely old men with Arsenic and their brother Teddy (who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt) buries them in the locks for the Panama Canal (which he is digging in the basement).

He also takes each trip up the stairs as if it was San Juan Hill. Both charming comedies about mental illness 🙂